Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1: Containing Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory.
Science
Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1: Containing Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory.
Psychology, Experimental
All the subjects were frequently conscious of eye movements, and more
frequently conscious of a tendency to eye movement, which was,
however, inhibited. That the strain in the eyes was practically
constant during all the movements away from the original places, seems
evident from the unanimous reports of a sense of relaxing and relief
in the eyes, attending the movement of returning to the original
places. The distance to which the images were moved was a powerful
factor in producing this sense of strain. When the two images were
moved and held but a few inches apart there was no sense of strain and
no conscious alternation of attention. Practice increased greatly the
distance at which the images could be held apart without conscious
alternation of attention, but the strain of holding them apart and of
inhibiting eye movement increased with the distance.
In the movements for which the time was recorded the distances varied,
according to the subject, from six to eighteen inches, and varied at
times with each subject. In the experiments without time record, A.,
B., C., E., F. and H. reported that they were able to move the images
apart to ceiling and to floor, or to the opposite ends of the room,
and to hold them there both in consciousness at the same time without
either alternation of attention or eye movement, a tendency to which
was felt but was inhibited. I. held them two feet apart without
fluctuation of attention. A. reported: "I tend to turn my body to left
or to right when I move the images in either of these directions." C.,
H. and I. said: "The eyes diverge when one image moves slowly to the
right and one to the left." D. found a slight movement of the eyes
which could be detected by the fingers placed lightly on the lids,
when the attention was alternating between the images. K. had
convergence and divergence of the eyes for crossing and separation
respectively and he was accustomed to run his eye over the outline of
the image. Strain in the scalp muscles was reported by A., B., E., F.
and G. The up-and-down movements were universally characterized by a
feeling as if one eye tended to move up and the other down. C.
unconsciously inclined his head to the left in such movements as if to
make the line of the two eyes parallel with the direction of the
movement.
E., when holding the images two feet apart, had a strong feeling of
difference of accommodation when alternating in observation and so
judged the two to be in different planes.
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